Any personal emergency response system or burglary/fire alarm system that exists today consists of a single alarm control unit located at the premise being monitored. This control unit is usually connected to a central monitoring station via one of the possible communication links in order to report a multitude of alarm, emergency or status signals. Multiple emergency or alarm remote initiating devices, whether they are fixed or portable, are used to initiate and convey an emergency or an alarm condition to the alarm control unit.
Some of these alarm control units have 2-way voice capability, containing a microphone and a speaker, capable of transferring the voices and sounds at the premises to the central monitoring station, and the voice of the central station operator to the people within the premise. It is known that remote wired speaker/microphone devices are available as attachments to some of the existing 2-way voice alarm systems. However in these systems, emergency RF signaling and 2-way voice communication has limited capabilities at best.
In the present invention, it is shown that by using multiple remote alarm control units as defined, not only extends the effective RF range of the remote initiating devices, but also the 2-way voice capability of the system is dramatically improved.